“Look closely and let this be a lesson to you! Lay down your vows only in the Temple of Glory. Abandon love and follow in the footsteps of Mars!”
Georg Frideric Handel, Orlando, aria, Act I, Scene II, Orlando and Zoroastro
THE MADNESS, WISDOM AND POWER OF THE MAGICIAN! Inspired by Ariosto’s epic poem, Orlando is a modern opera. Modern in the 18th century, because Handel, the most Italian of English composers, turned it into a happy tragedy by breaking free from the codes of opera seria. Modern in the 21st century, because this love story, reinterpreted in 2025 by Jeanne Desoubeaux, challenges gender roles. Sung at its premiere in 1733 by London’s most famous castrato, Senesino, Orlando is now performed by contralto Katarina Bradić, accompanied by the orchestra Les Talens Lyriques, conducted by Christophe Rousset.
The libretto is simple: five characters, four of whom are in love. Orlando, a knight, is torn between his desire to fight a war that cannot be seen and his irrepressible love for Queen Angelica, who is in a relationship with Medoro, a prince who himself is in love with Dorinda, a shepherdess by trade. Torn between jealousy and frustration, each of the characters lives in dissatisfaction, until the magician-philosopher Zoroastro helps Orlando to fight against himself: however, is coming to his senses really the same as going to war? Transposed to the heart of a museum, the play is revisited through the eyes of children, and director Jeanne Desoubeaux questions our own relationship with the world and with the past.
